


Mossbert the Mosscreep

by Scarlet_Claws



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, I Was Sick When I Wrote This, Mosscreeps are adorable, Pet Adoption, Sisters, The Knight is called Ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:36:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22663351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Claws/pseuds/Scarlet_Claws
Summary: The Mantis Lords get to babysit a mosscreep pet from Ghost.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 176





	Mossbert the Mosscreep

**Author's Note:**

> I have been very sick for the last few days, and I craved something simple and cute. Most of this was written while I had fever.

The mantis almost didn’t recognize Ghost, which meant they almost stuck them. When they had their face hidden by a bunch of leaves, it was an understandable mistake, one that luckily didn’t lead to any unbecoming consequences. Instead, the mantis tried to follow the Knight out of curiosity, but quickly dispersed when it turned out that they were walking in the direction of the Lord’s chamber.

The three sisters rose up from their seats to bow when they spotted the warrior that had defeated them, but hesitated when they saw what Ghost placed down on the ground in front of them.

The mosscreep chatted happily, before starting to dig a hole in their battle stage. Well, at least it tried because the stage happened to be hard wood. It still flopped over, probably convinced that it was perfectly hidden, and kept chatting to itself.

Ghost pointed to it, then pointed to the Lords, and then made their way to Deepnest.

The three sisters looked at each other, confused, then stood up from their thrones to investigate. Vigilance, the eldest of the three and the most combative, took her spear, just in case. Was this some sort of test that Ghost wanted them to pass?

The mosscreep stared up at them, perfectly still. Its wide eyes were clear from any trace of infection, which explained why it had not attacked Ghost. However, they couldn’t let their guard down. Sometimes, it was the most innocent-looking foes that were the most dangerous.

Not this one, though.

Maybe it gave a little nibble when Vigilance poked it with the blunt end of her spear, but when it realized that the wood wasn’t food it didn’t react any more than that. So it was poked a few times before the sisters realized that they weren’t going to get anything from it, and then they had to come to a decision.

“We can’t keep it,” Vigilance said.

“But, sister, the Warrior gave it to us,” said Equilibrium. She got on her knees to take a closer look at the creature, that peered straight back at her. “And it doesn’t seem to be aggressive or dangerous.”

“It does not have a spot here. It anything, it is our duty to bring it back where it comes from.”

Equilibrium reached for it. The mosscreep sniffed her hand, recognized that this was the appendage big creatures used for pets, and came excitedly crawled closer so that it could happily headbutt it. She giggled and scratched behind its antennas. The creature started to produce a string of happy noises.

“Equi! Don’t fall for its bewitchment!” Vigilance said.

“It’s not _bewitching_ me, it’s just happy. Look.”

“You are going to get _attached_.”

“I’ll bring it back,” Lucidity, the last sister, said. “I agree with you, Vigilance, it has no place here. It is a creature of Unn’s domain.”

Under moments, they had found a bag for transportation (the mosscreep seemed very happy about getting a new, special hiding place for itself) and Lucidity was on her way. It was but a short trip for someone with strides as long as Lucidity’s. She didn’t think she would be running into any problems on the way.

Except that, on its way up, the mosscreep started to fret, having seen something interesting. She didn’t notice it trying to crawl out of the bag at first, only when its weight suddenly became lighter; she turned around right in time to see the little bug creep to a bioluminescent mushroom and sit under it – although sit seemed to be a weak word from the way it happily flopped down, all legs and leaves spread, so that it would receive a maximum of light.

At first, she was annoyed by the delay, but seeing its behaviour intrigued her.

“You feed on light?” she asked.

Of course, it didn’t reply, but it did move a little bit so that it was even more comfortable and closed its eyes for a nap.

She sat on a nearby mushroom to talk a closer look at it. It was a very cute creature, she had to admit that. And if anything had been made clear so far, it was that it wasn’t dangerous. In fact, looking at it made one wonder how could something so small and harmless survive in the jungle of Unn’s domain without being hunted relentlessly.

Was that why the Warrior had taken it with them? Because there was a risk of it being hurt? She wasn’t... bringing it back to its death, wasn’t she?

It would only be the law of nature if she did so. Who was she to go against the food chain? They were hundreds, maybe even thousands of mosscreeps just like it. What did that one have that others didn’t that gave it a special privilege?

She huffed, picked it up – ignored how cute the happy sound it made was – and put it back in her bag.

“You stay in there, now, okay?” she said.

It stared up at her, at the finger she waved in front of its nose and understood that it was petting time. When she turned her attention away to keep walking, it kept headbutting her arms and sides, purring, wiggling, just to get her attention, and eventually crawled out – but this time to climb her.

“No! Get back in the bag.”

She put it back, it climbed back out, so she put it back again and this time closed it firmly. It had no hands to undo buttons, she thought that she was safe.

It started crying.

It was the most pitiful, the most heart-wrenching little “mii” sounds that one could imagine. She told herself to resist it, but they kept coming, and somehow became even more sorrowful. One would have had to be an absolutely horrible person to ignore how utterly betrayed, how abandoned this tiny, defenceless mosscreep felt by being starved from pets.

Lucidity sighed and opened the bag again. The crying stopped immediately when a hand came down to pet them behind the antennas. It was fine with staying in the bag after that, as long as it had a steady supply of attention.

And, well, she had to admit it, its purring was rather adorable.

Soon enough, they came in sight of the lush vegetation of Greenpath. She was glad this ordeal was done with. Soon, she would go home, and she would put this entire affair behind her once and for all.

She placed the mosscreep down, at her feet. It raised its head when it sensed the closeness of the land where it came from then darted straight ahead. She chuckled when she saw it waddle to its home. There. It was happier in the place where it was meant to be all along.

The mosscreep turned before getting to the plants, made a wide circle, and came back to flop on her foot with a leaf in its mouth.

“What are you doing?”

The only response she got was the intense crushing of the mosscreep eating its leaf.

“That’s not what you are supposed to do.”

She pulled her feet away. It flopped on its stomach, undisturbed, and kept eating.

It would be best if she just left, so she turned around and walked away. Right away, she heard the small tap-tap of the creature following her, so she accelerated. There, in front of her, were the Fungal Wastes – just a few more...

She heard the pitiful cry of a mosscreep with a broken heart far behind her.

Vigilance didn’t expect to hear _giggling_ of all things when she passed by their bedroom’s door. Of course, she investigated immediately, seeing that she had been looking for her disappearing sisters. For some reason, they seemed to vanish a lot since a few days, and that was odd.

The explanation soon became very clear as Vigilance caught both Lucidity and Equilibrium petting and cooing over the mossreep Lucidity was supposed to have brought back to Greethpath.

“What is this?” Vigilance asked.

Both of her sisters were startled by her sharp tone, which in turn startled the creature. The mosscreep escaped and made a beeline straight to a cabinet to stuff half of its body under it – before deciding that, yes, it was perfectly well hidden and flopped down.

“I didn’t allow them to stay!” Vigilance said, giving the stink eye to her sisters.

“Please don’t be mad, Vigi,” Equilibrium said, “we’re sorry, but... Mossy don’t mean any harm, we swear, and he’s very happy here.”

“ _Mossy?_ Its name is... _Mossy_?”

“Well, it’s not really a name— More like a nickname...”

Vigilance stared at them as she processed that information.

“His real name is Mossbert,” Lucidity said.

“You’ve named him. And then you’ve _nicknamed_ him.”

“Well we didn’t really mean to – it just sort of... happened,” Equilibrium said.

“I thought you were supposed to bring him back, Lucidity.”

“I did! But he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to be left alone. I tried. I swear. But when I would try to leave he would start _crying_...”

“Luci! You have been trained from your youngest age to slaughter beasts of all shapes and sizes. And you are telling me you couldn’t let a mosscreep free because it was _crying_?”

“You should have heard him to understand. I couldn’t _leave_ him.”

“I see that!”

“Vigi...”

“Don’t Vigi me, you two went behind my back!”

“Well, maybe this time it was necessary to do that,” Equilibrium said. “I mean, look at him!”

She pulled Mossbert from under the cabinet and showed him to her sister. The creature, that seemed to have forgotten that it was supposed to hide from the loud and scary mantis, cooed and started cleaning his face with his front legs.

“I will not be swayed by a cute face,” Vigilance said.

“Carry him and we’ll talk about that again.”

“I will not carry him.”

Equilibrium got up and placed him in her arms. Mossbert sniffed her clothes at once, the smell both new and familiar, and decided that this was another person fit to be climbed. He crawled out of her hold at once.

“Where is he going?” Vigilance asked. “What is he doing?”

“Relax, don’t worry. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Mossbert climbed up, over her shoulder, then square between her horns, where he flopped down comfortably and started purring. He was now the absolute tallest of all of them, and hence the most important person and the one most deserving of all the pets and the treats of everyone else.

Vigilance looked up into the two large, unblinking eyes that hung over her face. Suddenly, she felt something wet on her forehead.

“He licked me!”

“He likes you!” Lucidity said.

“He... likes me?”

“He probably thinks you must be secretly really nice.”

Vigilance reached up to pick him up from between her horns and held him in front of his face. With no ground under his feet, he wiggled a little, uncomfortable, as the mantis observed him carefully.

“Want to try giving him a treat?”

“I... I could do that.”

The two others sat her on a bed. Vigilance placed the creature on her lap and received a piece of sweet mushroom. The moment Mossbert caught a whiff of it, he started making needy little cries to get it faster, standing on his back legs to reach for it; when Vigilance gave it to him, he gripped her hand tightly so that it wouldn’t escape, ate it quickly, then licked her fingers until he had consumed every last bit of flavour. He only freed her when he was done.

“He must have been starving,” Vigilance said.

“Oh no, he just loves it,” Lucidity answered. “We feed him with a lot of light, water and some mushrooms that he likes.”

As they were talking, Mossbert had started to gently headbutt Vigilance in the stomach.

“What is he doing?” she asked.

“He wants some pets.”

“Pets?”

“Try to just... scratch him on the forehead.”

Vigilance did so, and Mossbert starting to purr. In fact, for a petting first-timer, she was doing really well: Mossbert soon flopped on the side to present his stomach to the pets.

Vigilance gave her sisters the look of a mantis that had just been shot through the heart by one of Cupid’s arrows. The two other giggled and nodded, glad that they were once again all on the same page – as they should be.

When Ghost returned from Deepnest, he knew right away that he wasn’t going to get his mosscreep back. The three Mantis Lords, Guardians of Deepnest, Warriors of the Mantis Tribe, were all entirely absorbed by the tiny creature on Vigilance’s lap, petting him and cooing at him about what a good little Mossy he was.

Ghost stood there for a good couple of minutes when they suddenly noticed them; when they did, they quickly straightened and sobered up, while Vigilance hid the creature behind Equilibrium’s throne. Not with a lot of success, because Mossbert, curious as he was, crawled out from behind it, sniffing at the ground and chatting to himself happily, before wandering over to his water bowl.

Ghost would have sighed if he could have. The creature had approached them while they were resting at a bench in Greenpath, and when they had tried to walk away he had kept following them. They didn’t know why Mossbert was not aggressive like the other mosscreep they had come across, or why he had been miraculously spared by the Infection, they had just scooped it up, unable to leave him behind when he seemed so heartbroken by the thought of being left alone. But, ultimately, Ghost was a travelling warrior, and not fit for taking care of a pet on the run – in particular, a pet that had no combat use and that was rather slow.

But it seemed that all was good that ended well. They had not expected the Mantis Lords to be the ones that would ultimately step up and adopt him, but they didn’t mind. If Mossbert lived happily here, then their job here was done.

They gave the creature a pat on the head when he came to see them, then bowed to the Lords and scaled up the wall, already thinking of the next step of their adventure. Mossbert watched them leave, then crawled back to the sisters, looking for a treat (even if he had already reached his daily quota of sweet mushroom, he could always dream.)


End file.
